Post by Haseen on Jun 28, 2011 20:40:07 GMT -5
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-238.pdf
tl;dr
AZ passed a public campaign financing bill in '98 that gave public funds in proportion to what was being spent privately, up to a limit, in exchange for not spending personal money. Public financing reduces corruption, because it becomes more difficult to bribe politicians with campaign money. This was just shot down by the SCOTUS (the proportionality to private funds, not public financing itself).
Majority: Spending private money on campaigns adds to public funding of other candidates, indirectly funding speech against you. This infringes on free speech to contribute campaign money because it potentially triggers more speech against your cause (your spending can become self-defeating). The argument was based almost entirely on another law thrown out. In it, if you spent more than a certain amount of money on your own campaign, it triggered more generous contribution limits to your opponents, but not for yourself. The argument goes, that spending more money creates a burden that would prevent you from spending it, therefore free speech is restricted.
Dissent: Speech is not infringed on by more speech. The way public funding was set up was makes it competitive with privately funded campaigns and makes the restrictions on personal spending less onerous. A lump sum would either be too much or too little, so tying it to private spending makes sense. There is an upper limit to public money, so privately funded campaigns can still outspend publicly funded ones. Oh, and the case above where the guy was discriminated against for spending too much money? It was thrown out specifically because it made that one guy play under a different set of rules.
(shit that was long, but the original decision+dissent was like 70 pages long)
But yeah, I think it was a ridiculous decision. The same 5 justices that voted for this, voted for Citizens United. Surprise surprise! Oh, and under the category of "it will discourage spending", the *actual* amount of private spending under that rule has gone UP something like 250%, which would never have happened under the reasoning of the majority. Nobody will privately spend money when they're just screwing themselves over, my ass!
tl;dr
AZ passed a public campaign financing bill in '98 that gave public funds in proportion to what was being spent privately, up to a limit, in exchange for not spending personal money. Public financing reduces corruption, because it becomes more difficult to bribe politicians with campaign money. This was just shot down by the SCOTUS (the proportionality to private funds, not public financing itself).
Majority: Spending private money on campaigns adds to public funding of other candidates, indirectly funding speech against you. This infringes on free speech to contribute campaign money because it potentially triggers more speech against your cause (your spending can become self-defeating). The argument was based almost entirely on another law thrown out. In it, if you spent more than a certain amount of money on your own campaign, it triggered more generous contribution limits to your opponents, but not for yourself. The argument goes, that spending more money creates a burden that would prevent you from spending it, therefore free speech is restricted.
Dissent: Speech is not infringed on by more speech. The way public funding was set up was makes it competitive with privately funded campaigns and makes the restrictions on personal spending less onerous. A lump sum would either be too much or too little, so tying it to private spending makes sense. There is an upper limit to public money, so privately funded campaigns can still outspend publicly funded ones. Oh, and the case above where the guy was discriminated against for spending too much money? It was thrown out specifically because it made that one guy play under a different set of rules.
(shit that was long, but the original decision+dissent was like 70 pages long)
But yeah, I think it was a ridiculous decision. The same 5 justices that voted for this, voted for Citizens United. Surprise surprise! Oh, and under the category of "it will discourage spending", the *actual* amount of private spending under that rule has gone UP something like 250%, which would never have happened under the reasoning of the majority. Nobody will privately spend money when they're just screwing themselves over, my ass!
